Library of Articles related to Communal Harmony

Mumbai: In the cosmopolitan chaos of the modern city, the original tribe still rules the roost. Last week, the supreme court upheld the right of a housing cooperative society to restrict membership on the basis of community and profession. However, the court also clarified that it must operate within the rules of the state. Since Maharashtra’s cooperative act stipulates open membership, the apex court judgment is unlikely to have any immediate impact on Mumbai unless the state government chooses to amend the law.
The judgment has, however, brought to the fore the conflict between the very human desire to choose one’s neighbours—and especially to live with one’s own tribe—and the right of an individual to reside anywhere he pleases. Indeed, reactions from city residents have exposed the paradox of modern Mumbai—even as economic opportunity and satellite TV homogenises urban identity, making class markers ostensibly more important than caste, the bonds of community refuse to die.
Historically, Mumbai was built up through enclaves like Parsi Colony and Hindu Colony in Dadar, community welfare projects that helped migrants find their place in the city. In recent years, community feeling is asserting itself in new and, some say, dangerous ways. Citing the ghettoisation that followed the 1993 riots, many like activist for communal harmony Feroze Mithiborwalla fear that the judgment will set a “dangerous precedent’’ for legalising social biases. Muslims already find it exceptionally difficult to get housing finance and to buy flats in predominantly Hindu localities, while in recent years, builders in suburbs like Mulund and Ghatkopar have found it lucrative to build temples along with swimming pools and unofficially market their projects to vegetarians.

SUNDAY SPECIAL
‘No need to give legal basis to communal bias’

By Vaishnavi C Sekhar/TNN

Mumbai: Thirty-three-yearold Quaid Doongerwala, an architect married to a Maharashtrian Brahmin, says he is routinely turned down when house-hunting. “Initially, it isn’t a problem perhaps because I don’t fit in with people’s idea of a Muslim, but once they hear my name, the deal is over,’’ he says, adding, “Some landlords tell me ashamedly, some matter-of-factly, and some pityingly.’’
It is in this context of discrimination that many Mumbaikars have expressed dismay at the recent apex court judgment upholding the right of housing societies to restrict membership on the basis of community. “Communal bias might be a social reality but there is no need to give it a legal basis,’’ says peace activist Feroze Mithiborwala. After the 1993 riots, Muslims fled mixed localities for their own, a phenomenon repeated in the Gujarat riots of 2002.
Others like property expert Vinod Sampat hold that such a restriction would violate a citizen’s f u n d a m e n t a l right to move freely in India. “The verdict is an extension of the constitutional freedom to belong to a particular religious denomination or political ideology. The CPI, for instance, would perhaps never take Nusli Wadia as its member,’’ says senior lawyer J P Cama, adding, “If I can exclude others from my own place of worship, why can’t I do so with my residence?’’ (In contrast, charity institutions like the Bohra-run Saifi hospital have lost legal battles to restrict services to their own community.)
For legal minds, the real question is about inter-racial marriages. “What happens when a Parsi man marries a non-Parsi or vice versa? Would the wife inherit the house in an all-Parsi housing society? Can the society throw her out?’’ asks Bombay Bar Association head Rafiq Dada. Former registrar of cooperatives of Mumbai R Vagh feels that in such cases, the inheritance laws would likely prevail over the society bye-laws.
A few years ago, the Zoroastrian Radih Society, promoters of the Parsi enclave of Behrambaug in Jogeshwari, lost a case in the Bombay high court against resident Pervin Jogina, who inducted her non-Parsi daughter-in-law into her flat. “It is not about insularity,’’ insists Behrambaug priest Marzban Hathiram. “When we distribute ourselves thinly in cultureless, concrete structures, there is no life in that. Intermingling leads to dilution of cultures.’’
Given the fact that different parts of the city evolved with distinct community identities—Maharashtrians in Girgaum, Gujaratis in Kalbadevi, South Indians in Matunga—one might say that Mumbai’s reputation for cosmopolitanism rests on the presence of multiple ethnic groups rather than their ability to live amicably next door. But some old-time residents say that there is a distinction—once, the borders between community spaces were blurred, today they have hardened.
The old societies were created by communities coming together and acquiring land, or by a community trust donating money for it. “So, there is some justification for restrictions, unlike today’s co-operatives where it’s purely a property transaction,’’ says Mahesh Kalyanpur, resident of Saraswat colony Talmakiwadi, Tardeo, adding that it was because of such community housing that IT czar Nandan Nilekani could live in Mumbai as a student.
“It’s natural that people would want to flock together with their own kind. Even in New York you have localities dominated by different migrant groups. But when it becomes a norm, it has a different connotation,’’ says pyshcologist Sandeep Pendse, adding that while “a multicultural society cannot be legislated into existence, one must oppose rules which create obstacles to its creation.’’
Sociologists see two contradictory forces operating in the city—first, increasing social divisions which “are setting back the project of national integration’’, and second, homogenisation brought about by economic and social liberalisation.
Which will win? The answer perhaps lies in the story of the Salsette Catholic Housing Cooperative Society in Bandra. Set up in 1918 to help house the Christian community, the society stipulated that members could not sell to non-Catholics. At that time, there were only bungalows but these were eventually brought down for buildings to house the new generations.
Each building formed its own society, and after some years, flat owners began to migrate to other countries, selling their flats, sometimes to outsiders. “If you sell it to a particular community, you might not get the market price since your choice of buyers is restricted and our community is largely from the salaried class,’’ explains Ernest Fernandes, a Bandra resident who feels that such change is not only inevitable but healthy. “A diversity of residents will help improve understanding among the different communities.’’
(With inputs from Swati Deshpande and Nauzer Bharucha)